Updated: 3:42 p.m. Sunday, Jan. 30, 2011 | Posted: 2:26 a.m. Sunday, Jan. 30, 2011

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MIDDLETOWN — It can be a bumpy ride living in the city but officials are rolling out a program to help make it a little smoother.

Linden Avenue is a hard road to travel — figuratively and literally — according to Jo Ann Gibson.

Known for its gaping potholes — the largest of which is located right in front of her home — Gibson said she has watched the road deteriorate over the past 30 years.

Meanwhile, she’s seen other neighborhood streets get repaved or receive additional street lights while her block is reduced to a single lamp post.

“Our taxes keep going up and up but it’s other streets around here (that) are getting paved,” she said.

City leaders are hoping a petition program may help address some of the concerns regarding some of those neighborhood roads.

The Street Resurfacing Assessment Program — a simplified version of a current Ohio law — will allow residents to petition the city to make repairs on the street where they live.

If 60 percent of the property owners agree, the cost of any necessary repairs would be partially assessed to the homeowners’ taxes.

The hope of the program is residents will see faster results on repairs to their roads while knowing their tax dollars are being used to directly benefit their property, said Public Works Director Dave Duritsch.

“Instead of paying into a tax that may pay for repairs on your street at some point, people may be more willing to pay a tax now to get the work done sooner,” he said. “It’s just another tool for residents.”

Information on the program as well as sample petitions are available on Middletown’s website: cityofmiddletown.org.

Program gives residents more tools to fix streets

To say Michai Fletcher was mad watching her muffler fall off her car after hitting a bump on Oxford State Road would be an understatement.

“I think I used every word in the book,” she said with a laugh. “I’m tired of how bad them roads are.”

With only $800,000 budgeted for street improvements in 2011, city leaders have recognized local dollars can only stretch so far for repairs. The Street Resurfacing Assessment Program is meant to allow residents to petition the city to make road repairs on their street.

If 60 percent of the property owners agree and city council approves the repairs, the costs would be partially assessed to the local property owners via a tax set as either a lump sum or over a longer time frame, said Public Works Director Dave Duritsch.

The program is meant to give residents more tools to improving their roads while possibly speeding up the repair process, he said.

Why it’s offered

It’s a scary feeling waking up at 2 a.m. to the sound of your door being kicked in.

Councilman Dan Picard said that has happened three times while he was living on Kenridge Drive when there were no street lights.

As someone working professionally with real estate laws, Picard said he knew he could petition the city to add street lights if he could get 60 percent of his neighbors to agree to the assessment. After much leg work on his own, the petition was accepted and Kenridge Drive had street lights.

He knew the same process could be used for road work — the problem was most residents didn’t know how to do it.

“We know the city does not have a lot of money to pave all the streets. For some of the smaller projects, this program could help meet those needs,” he said.

Picard was among several city leaders and engineers who worked together to create a program for Middletown that would allow residents to “go around the red tape and have an idea of what is needed” to get road work completed through a petition, said City Manager Judy Gilleland.

“The beauty of it is citizens can target their dollars rather than pay a general tax and maybe not see their street paved in a 10-year period,” she said.

“I am very anxious to see how many citizens take advantage of the program,” Gilleland added.

How it works

Interested residents can contact the city about repairs. Duritsch said Middletown officials would do the engineering and present the cost estimates to the petitioner for consideration.

Then the petitioner would then have to have a majority of his neighbors sign the document agreeing to the work and the costs before it could be presented to city council for consideration.

From experience, Picard said the petitioning program “is going to take some effort.

“I had to put in some time and went to all the houses on my street twice and talked to every neighbor,” he said. “I had to introduce myself to a lot of my neighbors and ask for support. But in the end all but one neighbor agreed.”

There are requirements for the program, such as that the street must be at least 500 feet long to be considered. What work will be done and the cost will depend on the state of the road. For instance, smaller pothole repairs could be reported and repaired through the city’s “pothole patrol” with no assessment required, Duritsch said. And some roads may need a simpler, less expensive repaving option while others may need to be ripped out for a full remediation.

“We wouldn’t want to put good money after bad,” Duritsch said. “We want the improvements to last longer than the cost to pay them back.”

With so few dollars set aside for street repairs citywide, Duritsch said how the improvements would be funded may vary. While at least a portion of the work would be funded eventually through a property tax assessment, he said the city would have to have money to pay upfront contracting costs.

That’s part of what city council will have to consider when it reviews the petitions, Gilleland said.

As a renter on Wilson Street, Fletcher can’t participate in the program, but she said she thinks it is a good idea.

“If it frees up the city to focus on main roads because we pay for our neighborhood streets, then I think it is a good thing,” she said.

For more information on the program, visit cityofmiddletown.org. To contact the “pothole patrol,” call (513) 727-3691 and select option 2.

Contact this reporter at (513) 705-2843 or jheffner@coxohio.com.